


Coffee Dad and His Kids

by AsinineK9



Category: Hustle Cat (Visual Novel)
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Hustle Cat (visual novel) - Freeform, Sleepy Cuddles, implied hayesxlandry, lol I hope someone reads this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-31
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:48:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24464452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsinineK9/pseuds/AsinineK9
Summary: After the Nacht incident, Graves wants to provide a game/movie night for the A Cat's Paw crew as a reward to cool down and relax. When it's late at night and he goes to check on them, he finds them sprawled out on the floor and entangled with each other, asleep. They still feel safe in the cafe, and Graves couldn't be happier.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	Coffee Dad and His Kids

**Author's Note:**

> Canonically they're around 19-25, but here (which I think is really more applicable to the game, as they look more like teenagers) they're around 17-18. Except for Graves, obviously. This fic takes place post-game.
> 
> Another 1am impulse fic, please enjoy fellow Hustle Cat fans, if you even exist :). Leave a Kudos if you like it so I know to write more stuff like this!
> 
> I love Graves being the dad of the group so much

A Sunday night at the cafe. The Sunday night only a few days after Nacht was gone for good. Graves' heart ached every time he thought about how hard they worked to fight Nacht off, and how they had to get involved in his old business in the first place. He put the people he cared so much about in danger. So, he needed to make it up to them.

He invited them to stay and sleep over at the cafe for a night, movies, snacks, board games, and other fun activities included to relax again and reconnect.

Instead of staying up in his apartment, he did his work on the balcony of the second floor. It brought him such joy to hear them all laugh. He thought after the Nacht scare, poor Hayes would never laugh again, or Avery would quit. Or all of them would quit. They absolutely deserved to- but Graves was beyond happy they didn't. 

They invited graves down to the main room to hang out with them a few times, maybe try his hand at Guitar Hero since he was in a band in past years, but he politely declined, making some excuse that Guitar Hero was no where close to the real thing, and frankly a bit insulting to real guitarists, or he had work, or needed to study witchcraft and spells to make the cafe more secure, or whatever. The real reason Graves didn't play with them was because he thought it good for them to be able to spend some quality time together, just them, especially after Nacht's... interruption from their normal lives.

Graves payed little attention to his work throughout the evening, instead choosing to be distracted by the conversations from the floor below. To his defense, they were quite loud, and it would be hard to focus anyway.

From what he picked up, Hayes was apparently very good at video games. Any kind, as well. Racing games, story games, other genres that Graves didn't care to remember, he bested everyone with fiery passion they'd never seen out of him before. Being so good at video games, he subsequently gave up his controller to someone else after the attention of so many people asking how he got so good. 

Mason beat everyone almost every time in every board game the cafe had. She said something about how her family would play board games every Wednesday night, just to connect with each other. Or was it Friday night? ...Saturday, maybe? The small details didn't matter, as Graves remember Mason saying that this was exactly like playing with her family. The rest of the staff coo-d and aww-ed at that, at her saying she saw them as family. She did try to clarify that she meant her family would always try to cheat because she kept winning, but it was drowned out by the loud clicking of Finley's camera and the others instance to continue the game.

Finley said how she splurged and bought a nicer, fancier camera that she'd use for taking better pictures to post on the A Cat's Paw social media pages, but also wanted to capture more candids of her friends. Graves picked up bits and pieces of how she was saving the money for a rainy day, but thought that after the recent life-or-death incident, she'd just use it to get something she wanted now instead of waiting any longer. He yelled down to them at some point to send the pictures to him. He didn't mention, however, that he wanted to hang a picture of all of them up in the cafe.

Reese showed them his latest project- he was learning to knit. Sure, he knew how to sew and make clothes, but he wanted to expand his horizons to see what other styles he could dabble in. One of them, though Graves didn't catch who, offered to help him if he got tripped up, because knitting isn't an easy task. Reese only made a scarf so far, but picked up on some new and advanced techniques pretty quickly that he wanted to try out on future projects.

Landry, upon hearing about Reese's ambition to start new projects, brought up an idea that he mentioned to Graves once before, but hadn't told his co-workers- he wanted to design and make a large cat-tree-and-or-cat-house to station in front of one of the windows so the cats would have more spaces to lay in the sun, and more potential customers could see the cats and decide to come in to pet them. He knew it'd take a lot of effort and time out of his regular cafe work, so he didn't bring it up until then because he didn't want to skip out on his job while others still worked hard- but he was immediately met with offers to cover his shifts, and comments about how that's a great idea, etc. He agreed then that he'd do it, and that he'd talk to Graves about finalizing the proposal as soon as possible. 

Graves knew Landry would be leaving for college soon enough, and Graves mentioned more than once he'd be a great architect. Hearing Landry's interest in designing and building something so large made Graves think he may actually be considering it. 

Avery wanted to keep studying magic, and maybe bring Mochi in to the cafe more often. Though the situation of why they had to bring the chunky kitty in to the cafe was unfortunate, Avery said Mochi seemed to really like it with the other cats. Reese said something about being disappointed the curse was broken because he wouldn't have the chance to connect with Mochi on that personal of a level anymore. 

They decided on a movie after a while, one of the DVDs that Avery or Finley brought in. 

There were a few comments at first, about plot holes or unrealistic-ness or how 'oh oh, this is may favorite part so SHHHH!', but after a while things got very quiet. Graves didn't realize that things were so quiet for quite some time, but when he did notice, he thought it best to peek over the railing and see how the bunch was doing. 

All passed out. Graves wondered if even though the curse was broken, they were still going to act like cats, because that's how it seemed, all piled up on each other like cats would be.

Graves softly smiled without realizing it. Look at those kids. They deserved a nice rest.

He went up to his apartment and grabbed a few blankets, and headed to the first floor to get a better look at how the pajama-clad kids were entangled. 

Avery's feet were propped up on Reese's chest, and their head draped over Mason's arm. 

Finley sprawled out like a starfish and touched almost everyone in some way, be it her hair accidentally getting caught it someone else's mouth, or her elbow jabbing into their side. 

Mason slept stomach down, one arm under her head to act as a pillow, one arm under Avery's head to act as their pillow. 

One of Reese's feet stuck straight up in the air, if you can believe it. Graves slowly lowered it, trying not to wake the boy and thinking it may be more comfortable to have some blood still in his leg by morning.

Hayes obviously made it a point to not be touching anyone with any part of him, save for his head gently resting upon Landry's chest, rising up and down softly as the older boy breathed. 

Landry's legs rested over one of Finley's. One of his arms was folded behind his head to act as a pillow, though it slipped out under his head from its original holding. The other arm lay resting on the back of Hayes' head.

A few cats lay sprinkled about between all of them.

Graves gave a low chuckle at the positions of them. How were they comfortable? Yet they were. Comfortable, happy, and content. And obviously they still felt safe in the cafe, which was more than Graves could have asked for. He unfolded the blankets, placing them gently onto each worker in a way that would effectively cover most of their body while not covering their face. Or someone else's face, for that matter. One or two stirred at the object suddenly being placed on them, but didn't wake and eventually enjoyed the extra warmth.

Before he left to also catch some sleep, Graves turned off the movie and looked over them one last time. His kids. No- his workers. But weren't they basically family at that point? They had more than a regular boss-employee relationship. Nevertheless, he smiled again, and went up to his own bed to hopefully sleep just as peacefully as the bunch downstairs.


End file.
